The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) is offering a full time 18 months postdoctoral researcher position in the topic of optimal design and operation of smart sustainable buildings considering their interaction with the smart energy grid. She/he will join the Environmental Sustainability Assessment and Circularity (SUSTAIN) Unit of the Environmental Research and Innovation (ERIN) department ofLIST, which is developing knowledge, transferable technologies (e.g. software) and practical methods for the integrative evaluation and management of the sustainability of human driven systems. Within the SUSTAIN Unit, the applicant will be incorporated in the Sustainable Energy Systems (SES) Group. The SES Group conducts research and develops innovative tools for the planning and operations of electric energy systems, with a specific focus on renewable energy integration in smart grids.The directive 2010/31/EU (revised in 2016) imposes that, by the end of 2020, new buildings must be nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEBs), meaning that their energy consumption and on-site renewable energy sources (RES) production be yearly nearly balanced. To achieve this goal, buildings are being equipped with RES and possibly energy storage devices. The concept of nZEB is pushed forward toward smart sustainable building (SSB), which imposes that the building : (i) meets nZEB requirements and its material stock has a low environmental impact, and (ii) integrates an efficient energy management system (EMS) to optimally steer RES, storage, and deferrable loads (smart appliances, electric vehicles, heat pumps).

DESCRIPTION

The postdoctoral researcher will be involved in the project gENESiS, whose three-fold research question is: how to optimally design and operate the EMS of an existing or new SSB while seeking its optimal integration into the smart power grid?The main two objectives of the retained candidate are:

to develop a methodology for planning SSB EMS optimal design, which determines the optimal size and technology choice for RES and energy storage, heeding to renovation measures, as a trade-off between economic benefit and environmental impact; and

To attain these objectives, the candidate will develop models of SSBs and original mathematical optimisation tools at both planning and operation stages of SSBs resorting to mixed-integer linear programming and model predictive control. It is expected that the candidate will publish the main findings at peer-reviewed conferences and top journals.